Symbols of Light and Dark in Wuthering Heights

Symbols of Light and Dark in Wuthering Heights Beware of Binary opposites!

The forces and figures of darkness are affiliated with + the value of energy and – the threat of chaos HEATHCLIFF

The forces and figures of light are affiliated with + the value of order and – the threat of sterility EDGAR LINTON

Pure darkness makes for destruction and anarchy Pure light makes for sterility and stasis How may this be applied to the characters in Wuthering Heights?

Heathcliff, dark in nature and cut off from the light, becomes pure destructive energy Linton Heathcliff, light in nature and cut off from the energy of darkness, becomes frozen in sterile impotence

Nietzsche

Nietzsche called the light and dark the Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in life. Psychic integration depends on the human capacity to blend the Apollonian and Dionysian into a life of ordered energy

ROMANTICISM AND THE BRONTËS

The Brontës were familiar with the writings of the major romantic poets and the novels of Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian). When Charlotte Brontë, for instance, wanted an evaluation of her writing, she sent a sample to the romantic poet Southey.

The romantic elements in the Brontës' writings are obvious. Walter Pater saw in Wuthering Heights the characteristic spirit of romanticism, particularly in › "the figures of Hareton, Earnshaw, of Catherine Linton, and of Heathcliff–tearing open Catherine's grave, removing one side of her coffin, that he may really lie beside her in death–figures so passionate, yet woven on a background of delicately beautiful, moorland scenery, being typical examples of that spirit. "

As the details of their lives became generally known, and as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights received increasingly favorable critical attention, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne were cast in the role of Romantic Rebels.

Origins: Brunty or Branty Lived in the rural Yorkshire moors Charlotte (1816), Branwell (1817), Emily (1818), Anne (1820) Gypsy connection

WH exhibits childish predilections (Cathy) Challenges the basic assumptions of “romantic” and “gothic” Romantic and gothic elements cannot stand the sunlit world of sanity What endures is not the violent, narcissistic love of Heathcliff and Catherine, but the plausible love of Cathy and Hareton

Gothic parody? Heathcliff scornfully chastises Isabella for thinking he is the hero of her imagined romance He is in fact the Byronic hero, though he testifies that he is free from the fabulous notions of a hero in a romantic novel. P. 147, chapter 14

Characteristics of the Byronic hero › › › › Moody Passionate Cruelty Guilt from past crime (usually sexual in nature) Isolated/alienated Self-destructive Arrogant Intelligent Cynical Emotionally conflicted (bipolar disorder) Heroically defiant Humanistic opposer of tyranny A symbol of struggle and hope

Gothic Elements Split into groups, choose your element (look at the gothic elements handout), and find three examples of your gothic element. Write it on the board. Share it out and annotate your book.

Wuthering Heights: the Romantic/Gothic novel According to Robert Kiely

Robert Kiely raises the question in The Romantic Novel in England of whethere actually is an English romantic novel? He skirts answering his own question by suggesting that some novels are influenced by Romanticism and incorporate the same style and themes that appear in Romantic poetry and drama. In his discussion, the term Romantic novel is often equated with the romance, with the Gothic novel, and with the romantic elements in a novel. Kiely regards Wuthering Heights as a model of romantic fiction; it contains these romantic/Gothic elements which characterize the romantic novel:

dynamic antagonism or antithesis The dynamic antagonism or antithesis in the novel tends to subvert, if not to reject literary conventions; often a novel verges on turning into something else, like poetry or drama. In Wuthering Heights, realism in presenting Yorkshire landscape and life and the historical precision of season, dates, and hours co-exist with the dreamlike and the unhistorical; Brontë refuses to be confined by conventional classifications.

protagonists' wanderings The protagonists' wanderings are motivated by flight from previously-chosen goals, so that often there is a pattern of escape and pursuit. Consider Catherine's marriage for social position, stability, and wealth, her efforts to evade the consequences of her marriage, the demands of Heathcliff and Edgar, and her final mental wandering.

irresistible passion The protagonists are driven by irresistible passion–lust, curiosity, ambition, intellectual pride, envy. The emphasis is on their desire for transcendence, to overcome the limitations of the body, of society, of time rather than their moral transgressions. They yearn to escape the limitations inherent to life and may find that the only escape is death. The longings of a Heathcliff cannot be fulfilled in life.

Death as a psychological concern Death is not only a literal happening or plot device, but also and primarily a psychological concern. For the protagonists, death originates in the imagination, becomes a "tendency of mind, " and may develop into an obsession.

Importance of buildings As in Gothic fiction, buildings are central to meaning; the supernatural, wild nature, dream and madness, physical violence, and perverse sexuality are set off against social conventions and institutions. Initially, this may create the impression that the novel is two books in one, but finally Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights fuse.

No happy endings Endings are disquieting and unsatisfactory because the writer resists a definitive conclusion, one which accounts for all loose ends and explains away any ambiguities or uncertainties. The preference for openendedness is, ultimately, an effort to resist the limits of time and of place that effort helps explain the importance of dreams and memories of other times and location, like Catherine's delirious memories of childhood at Wuthering Heights and rambles on the moors.